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LiveWell Greenville can impact all aspects of life

LiveWell Greenville is a network of organizations partnering to ensure access to healthy eating and active living for every Greenville County resident.

“We work on high-level policy and regulation issues,” said Sally Wills, LiveWell Greenville executive director. “I think many businesses see the impact wellness can have on employees – they’re seeing it pay off.”

Wills said oftentimes small to mid-size business don’t have the resources to make big changes. “We try to offer free resources and an online toolkit,” she said.

LiveWell Greenville has community action work groups to promote and enhance healthy living in eight aspects of life – mealtime, at play, at school, out of school, at work, at worship, at the doctor and around town. Information and resources are available for all eight groups and includes toolkits, healthy eating guides, physical activity maps, networking sessions, trainings, workshops, and other technical support and materials. The information is available on LiveWell Greenville’s website at www.livewellgreenville.org.

Greenville-based ScanSource Inc. is a LiveWell Greenville partner and over the years has been recognized by the group for being a healthy business and offering healthy resources. This year ScanSource received a LiveWell Workplace Award for offering “well-balanced wellness programs and for making available a registered dietitian and Zumba instructor.”

“The assessment takes into account every program, resource and educational offering we have here,” said Jessica Howard, manager of the Benefits and Wellness Program at ScanSource.

When asked about the wellness offerings available to ScanSource employees, Howard said to think about it in terms of “total well-being.”

“We speak to all corners of well-being, focusing on seven areas – intellectual, emotional, physical, social, environmental, occupational and medical,” she said. “Our goal is to feed resources to each of these seven areas so employees will feel supported, no matter where they are on their journey.”

Howard said the healthy initiatives at ScanSource seek to support employees in making positive lifestyle changes, which improves health, productivity, retention and health care cost savings.

“At ScanSource, we’ve always had a sense of health and well-being,” Howard said. “I came in March 2011 to bring an organized effort to this initiative.”

Since Howard’s arrival, the healthy lifestyle initiatives have grown to include an employee’s medical plan. ScanSource employees can earn savings off of out-of-pocket medical deductibles by participating in the voluntary wellness programs at the company.

“We have an overwhelming participation rate,” Howard said. “Engagement is important. It is what allows our programs to still be here.”

There are about 675 employees at ScanSource in Greenville, and 1,100 across the U.S. Howard said about 82% of U.S. employees participate in some form of wellness activity.